Lots of speculation in this post. Trump won because people wanted to upset the apply cart. They were tired of all the politicians, not just progressives like you state. Let’s not forget he lost the popular vote by over 2million votes.
Yep, he lost the popular vote by close to 3 million (2.8 something) and won the electoral college only because less than 80,000 (78,000 something) votes went his way in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (I was at the doctor yesterday and was thumbing through the New Yorker, and saw an article about a book by Kathleen Jameison, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the U of Penn (which runs factcheck.org) that looks into those 80,000 votes, and how they may have been affected by all of the targeted Russian propaganda:
Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President, What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know.)
A lot of Trump supporters on here claim to know the reason why Trump won, as if 2016 were some resounding victory for Trump and for whatever batshit thing Trump said to get their vote as he was cobbling together his irrational base of die hard nut huggers. I know several republicans though who were concerned about Trump and did not vote for him in the primaries, but held their noses and voted for Trump in the general election, as a vote against Clinton, without a real belief that Trump had a shot at actually winning. They still would much rather have someone like a Rubio, Graham, etc., or even a Chris Christie, who they think could have gotten everything done that Trump has done that they have supported, without all of the stupid, outrageous, and concerning shit that Trump has done, and without all of the divisive rhetoric.